Or, and here's a crazy idea: let's not go around advocating the extermination of people.

Well, extermination can come from different forms. Migrating to a country and out breeding the local populace would yield the same result as extermination through war. Not say I advocate the extinction of a sub race, but you gotta notice muslims to western europe and then demanding their subjective beliefs to be treated as if it's the ultimate truth that even governments and nations with a different belief should obey them.

Sorry, not gonna happen. Certainly I am against advocating the extermination of nationalities, or religions, but child molesters? <language=dahlek>EXTERMINATE!</language>
And those who target civilians and embasies for death and violence ti make a social or political point (or editorial), they also go on my death list.

The point of a killer bees reference... if you know doing something is going to piss people off, and you go and do it for the sole purpose of pissing those people off... what kind of person does that make you? Is it so hard to stop and say, "You know, if I post these pictures, I'll upset a lot of people, which might lead to violence. Maybe I should use my head."

If you find a killer bee hive, you don't walk up to it and start beating it with a stick.

Very bad analogy. Your analogy would be about denying Muhammeds status as a prophet in the Middle East, which is what the Coptic Christians in Egypt are doing and dying by the hundreds for. Using your free speech in the west is like telling one of your friends "You know what I really hate? Bees!" and having the bees retaliate by stinging everybody in a 100 km radius, even though said beehive is in a different country than you are in.

I can't believe how willing some westerners are to forfeit their hard earned liberties because it hurts the feelings of people they have nothing to do with. Was Salmun Rushdie "beating a beehive with a stick" when he wrote his book "The satanic verses"? Was it justified and totally forseeable that Ayatollah Khomeini exclaimed a fatwa over him, basically ordering all muslims in the United Kingdom to kill him despite him being in Iran?

On top of that, your comparison of muslims to bees is not only wrong, but downright offensive, as if muslims are animals that instinctively attack everything they don't like and must be treated as such. A bee can't help but sting anything it considers a threat. I assume muslims are humans like you and I and thus capable of reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wippit Guud

The point of a killer bees reference... if you know doing something is going to piss people off, and you go and do it for the sole purpose of pissing those people off... what kind of person does that make you?

It makes you a critical person that believes certain ideas need to be criticized. Imagine if there was only one political party in your country that couldn't be scrutinized in any possible way, you'd be apt to call that totalitarian. Then what should we call this idea when it applies to an ideology thousands of kilometers removed from our geographic location and without any bearing on our political, religious or moral system? What about Christian minorities in countries like Nigeria that get prosecuted not for making mean cartoons about Muhammed but simply not being Muslim? Are we supposed to take the feelings of savages that kill other people for having different beliefs into consideration when deciding whether or not we value western culture and values? And please don't call me ethnocentric, killing other people for not having the same beliefs as yourself is savage regardless of culture or geographic location.

It doesn't sound like criticism to me it sounds like waving your morality about and acting all high-minded about it.

So satire is no longer criticism? I'd say a good satirical cartoon not only make you laugh, but also depict something that makes you think or draws attention to something wrong in the world. I think the famed Danish cartoo about Muhammed, for example, did jsut this, as does the Charlie Hebdo in France. If the west is no longer allowed to do this and only give nice* criticism, we're censuring ourselves and freely giving up one of our most fundamental freedoms.

*Of course, the ones who decide what's nice and what isn't are the ones that blow up embassies.

Choosing to lampoon is certainly not the most useful method of criticism, if it is criticism at all. Humour us a tool and a weapon, often carelessly applied and puerile.
What you are defending is mostly a sales winner aimed at unengaged domestic consumers rather than an incisive and thought-provoking homily.

Choosing to lampoon is certainly not the most useful method of criticism, if it is criticism at all. Humour us a tool and a weapon, often carelessly applied and puerile.
What you are defending is mostly a sales winner aimed at unengaged domestic consumers rather than an incisive and thought-provoking homily.

Even if we assume this is true for the sake of argument, why should this be only brought up when Islam is the "victim" rather than Christianity, political ideas, other countries or actual persons? Politicians like Mitt Romney fall victim to caricatures and cartoons a dozen times more cruel and insulting than the Danish Muhammed Cartoons on a regular basis..

At least with the Satanic Verses they targeted the author, not the country, not innocent bystanders or emmisarries from other countries.
One thing I do wonder- how did they know the video orriginated in the US? What would happen if say China were to post a video like this to try and crate problems between the US and the middle east?

Even if we assume this is true for the sake of argument, why should this be only brought up when Islam is the "victim" rather than Christianity, political ideas, other countries or actual persons? Politicians like Mitt Romney fall victim to caricatures and cartoons a dozen times more cruel and insulting than the Danish Muhammed Cartoons on a regular basis..

I'm not suggesting people have their freedoms denied.

But if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you are about to do will cause violence, what kind of person are you that you'll do it anyway?